The
Warehouse, Baltimore, Maryland
Tuesday, August 31, 2:21
A.M.
Time Remaining on the
Extinction Clock: 33 hours, 39 minutes
Rudy Sanchez unscrewed the top of the bottle
of ginger ale and poured a glass for the Kid. There was a plate of
sandwiches that the boy hadn’t touched and an open pack of cookies
from which one had been taken, nibbled, and set aside. The boy
looked briefly at the soda and then turned his head away and
continued to stare at his own reflection in the big mirror that
covered one wall.
“You couldn’t sleep?” Rudy
asked.
The boy shook his head.
“You probably have a lot of questions. About
what’s going to happen. About your own future.”
A shrug.
“SAM.?”
“That’s not my name.”
“Sorry. Do you prefer to be called
Eighty-two? No? Is there another name you’d prefer? You have a
choice. You can pick any name you want.”
“That guy Joe called me
Kid.”
“Do you like that? Would you like people to
call you that?”
A shrug.
“Tell me what you’d like.”
The boy slowly turned his head and studied
Rudy. He was a good-looking boy, but at the moment his eyes held a
reptilian coldness. The brown of his irises was so dark that his
eyes looked black, the surfaces strangely
reflective.
“Why do you care?” said the
boy.
“I care because you’re a teenager and from
what Joe’s told me you’ve been in a troubling
situation.”
The boy snorted. “ ‘Troubling.’
”
“Is there another word you’d
prefer?”
“I don’t know what to call it,
mister.”
Rudy said, “I also care because you’re a
good person.”
“How do you know?” The boy’s tone was
mocking, accusatory.
“You took a great risk to warn us about the
Extinction Wave.”
“How do you know I wasn’t just trying to
save myself?”
“Is that the case? Did you take all of those
risks to send those two videos and the map just to save yourself?
You took great risks to help other people. That’s very
brave.”
“Oh, please. ”
“And it’s heroic.”
“You’re crazy.”
“No,” said Rudy. “Do you know what bravery
is?”
“I guess.”
“Tell me.”
“People say that being brave is when you do
something even when you’re afraid.”
Rudy nodded. “I imagine that you were
afraid. You were probably very afraid, and yet you took a risk to
send us this information.”
The boy said nothing.
“Why did you do it?”
“That’s a stupid question.”
“Is it?”
“It’s stupid because I had to do
it.”
“Why did you have to do
it?”
The boy said nothing. His dark eyes were
wet.
“Why did you have to do it?” Rudy asked
again.
“Because.”
“Because why?”
“Because I’m afraid.”
“What are you afraid of?”
Tears filled the boy’s eyes and he turned
away again. He sat for a long time staring at his reflection. The
lights were low and that side of the room was in shadows. It
distorted the boy’s reflection, made him look older, as if the
mirror was actually a window through which the boy could see his
future self. A tear broke and rolled down one of his
cheeks.
“I’m afraid I’m going to go to Hell,” said
the boy.
Rudy paused. “Hell? Why do you think that?
Why would you go to Hell?”
“Because,” said the boy quietly, “I’m
evil.”